You need to know that I’m not prone to machismo, and that I’m perfectly comfortable with the current role I have in our household. Nor am I overly concerned with political correctness, as my wife will occasionally note with a cringe. But I had no idea how to respond to this statement, delivered at a party by a man I’d never met, who turned out to be the brother of a friend of a friend.

“Yes, I suppose I am. And you must be the designated jackass of the party.” While the first sentence was spoken, the second stayed, thankfully, in my head. I’m not even sure he was aware that he was being both pathetically anachronistic and vaguely offensive, as though he had turned to the one black person at the party and said, “Ah, so you’re the Negro friend.”